The present invention generally pertains to communications systems and is particularly directed to mediating communications between a first device having a given protocol and a second device having a different protocol, such as mediating information management in a communications network between a network element having a given management-information protocol and an operations support system having a different management-information protocol.
In a network, such a telecommunication network, the network elements are devices for providing various functions, such as switching and multiplexing; and information pertaining to aspects of the network elements referred to herein as resources is managed by one or more operations support systems for such purposes as logging and discriminating alarms, handling performance data and for performing other functions. Examples of resources include switches, input-output controllers and responder amplifiers. Management information is communicated between the operations support systems and the network elements as messages respectively pertaining to a given resource. These messages include a collection of information management roles pertaining to the given resource selected from among a resource "description" role, a resource "identification" role, a resource "attribute" role and an attribute "value" role. The "description" role identifies the network element by ID number and describes the type of resource, such as a switch. The "identification" role identifies the resource by ID number. The "attribute" role identifies a given attribute of the resource, such as the position of the switch. The "value" role specifies a value of the resource, such as an open or closed position of the switch.
Management-information messages sent by the operations support system to network elements in a telecommunications network are classified as GET, SET and ACTION messages. A GET message requests specified information pertaining to an attribute of the resource. A SET message requests that a specified action affecting a value of an attribute of the resource be taken. An ACTION message requests that a specified action be performed by a specified resource, without specifying an attribute of the resource. A response message sent by the network element to the operations support system is associated with the GET, SET and ACTION request messages. These response messages are either the response requested by a GET message, a confirmation that the action requested by a SET or ACTION message was taken, an ACK (acknowledgment) that the request message was received, or an error message. In addition to such responses to a request message the network elements also send autonomous messages to the operations support system, such as an ALARM message.
Typically an operations support system is embodied in a computer system that includes computer hardware operating under control of a software operating system and typically includes an application program written with an application program interface (API) for execution on the computer system under control of a computer operating system. Standardized management-information protocols for such operations support systems, such as CMIP and SNMP, have been provided by various organizations, such as ITU (International Telecommunications Union), IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), Bellcore (Bell Communications Research), and ANSI (American National Standards Institute).
Some existing network elements, such as the model ADM-2000 manufactured by AT&T and the model FLM-600 manufactured by Fujitsu, have a management-information protocol, such as TL1, that is different from the standardized management-information protocols of the widely used operations support systems, such as CMIP and SNMP. Also, whereas the GDMO standard is used for describing resources and the ASN.1 standard is used for defining the data format for individual resources for communications in accordance with the CMIP protocol, and the SMI standard is used many for describing resources for communications in accordance with the SNMP protocol, existing network elements not having such a standardized management-information protocol typically are only ASCII or bitstream based and have no formal management information description.
A mediation device is used for interfacing a network element with an operations support system having a management-information protocol that is different from the management-information protocol of the network element. Such a mediation device recomposes messages received from the operations support system for communication to the network element to be in accordance with the management-information protocol for the network-element and recomposes messages received from the network element for communication to the operations support system to be in accordance with the operations-support-system management-information protocol. Such a mediation device includes a file mapping an association between the resources and resource attributes of a network element having a given management-information protocol, such as TL1, and the descriptions of the resources and resource attributes of an operations support system having a different management-information protocol, such as the GDMO/ASN.1 resource and resource attribute descriptions used in accordance with the CMIP protocol.
The present invention provides a device for mediating information management in a communications network between a network element having a given management-information protocol and an operations support system having a different management-information protocol, comprising a NEDL file defining a structured network-element-description-language (NEDL) format referencing information-management roles pertaining to the given network element in accordance with the network-element management-information protocol; and a processor coupled to the NEDL file and adapted for recomposing messages received for communication to the network element to be in accordance with the network-element management-information protocol and for recomposing messages received from the network element for communication to the operations support system to be in accordance with the operations-support-system management-information protocol.
Preferably, the network-element-description-language format includes a plurality of different predetermined message patterns respectively containing different combinations of references to blocks of parameters respectively having a defined syntax and an assigned information-management role; and the NEDL file also defines resources of the network element in terms of information managed by the messages, wherein the resources definition includes constructs respectively defining descriptions of the information pertaining to the resource, attributes of the information pertaining to the resource and those of the different message patterns that apply to the resource.
In another aspect, the present invention provides a device for mediating information management in a communications network for communications with a given network element having a given management-information protocol, comprising a NEDL file defining a structured network-element-description-language (NEDL) format referencing information-management roles pertaining to the given network element in accordance with said network-element management-information protocol and in accordance with an intermediate management-information protocol that is different from said network-element management-information protocol; and a NEDL processor coupled to the NEDL file and adapted for recomposing messages received for communication to the network element to be in accordance with said network-element management-information protocol and for recomposing messages received from the network element for further communication to be in accordance with said intermediate management-information protocol.
In accordance with this aspect of the present invention, mediation of information management between the network element and an operations support system having a management-information protocol that is different from the network-element management-information protocol and the intermediate management-information protocol may be accomplished by combining the mediation device with an application interface device that is adapted for mediating information management for communications between the NEDL processor and the operations support system.
By combining a mediation device and an application interface device having a common intermediate management-information protocol for mediating information management in a communications network between a network element having a given management-information protocol and an operations support system having a different management-information protocol, one is able to utilize a standardized mediation device for a given network element without regard to the information-management protocol of the operations support system and one is able to utilize a standardized application interface device for a given operations support system without regard to the information-management protocol of the network element.
The mediation device of the present invention may be configured for a given network element by adapting the NEDL file to the management roles, parameters and resources of the given network element. Such a configurable mediation device can be dynamically reconfigured to allow a new network element to be substituted in the communication network for the network element for which the mediation device was configured or to reconfigured in accordance with a change in the management-information protocol of an existing network element having to break down the communication network.
The present invention additionally provides various systems for mediating information management in a communications network between one or more network elements respectively having different management-information protocols and one or more operations support systems respectively having different management-information protocols, wherein these various systems comprise one or more mediation devices and a control unit for selectively connecting and/or configuring the mediation device(s) for mediating information management between selected network element(s) and selected operations support system(s), as more precisely described in the detailed description of the preferred embodiments. The control unit can control the configuration of the mediation system and/or the configuration of the mediation devices within the system so that communication between any selected network element and any selected operations support system can be actively carried out without requiring the communication network to be broken down and manually reconfigured.
The present invention further provides various computer readable storage media for use with a processor included in an information-management system for causing and/or enabling the processor to perform various functions, respectively including (i) recognizing different predetermined message patterns within received messages and (ii) recomposing received messages, as more precisely described in the detailed description of the preferred embodiments
Additional features of the present invention are also described with reference to the detailed description of the preferred embodiments.